Thursday 4 September 2014

The Fool's Gold of Separation

Brian Wilson writes:

Other people’s nationalism tends to look cuddlier from afar.

Those on the left who would be horrified by association with the version on their own doorsteps fall over themselves to find progressive potential in movements they do not have the inconvenience of experiencing at close range.

Balladeers who have strummed righteously to songs of solidarity and working-class unity become cheerleaders for the destruction of these very values.

Convoluted theories are constructed about how dividing people will actually unite them through some mysterious process of inspiration and example.

Scotland is currently suffering an overdose of such enthusiasms, gratefully soaked up by the advocates of independence.

George Monbiot has produced a classic of the genre.

Rejecting independence would be “an astonishing act of self-harm” perpetrated by those hooked on “system justification” whose victims – poor souls – are “addicted to domination by another group”.

It is patronising rubbish. Monbiot’s treatise oozes loathing for the state in which he lives.

It is “broken, corrupt, dysfunctional” and yet he can do nothing about it, no matter how hard he rails. Except, perhaps, help to break it up and then claim that, however irrationally, as a progressive act.

There are other, less gloomy, views of our imperfect society.

It offers freedoms to dissent and achievements to be grateful for. We have built together a National Health Service and a welfare state. We have created educational opportunities beyond the dreams of our forebears. 

While inequality remains an affront, in Newcastle as much as in Glasgow, there are standards of prosperity and rights for working people, won through long decades of struggle.

In Scotland, there is a parliament with the powers to address outstanding injustices – if it chooses to use them.

Everything that has transformed our life prospects has been achieved within the United Kingdom, fought for by people with shared interests in every part of that state, combining against the same forces of privilege and reaction that have invariably sought to halt the incremental march of progress.

Anyone who believes that Scotland has been, or would be, exempt from that dynamic knows nothing of its history, ancient or modern.

The more prosaic truth is that progressive politics in every part of our island would be cruelly weakened if we were divided into separate states.

A UK without Scotland would be much less likely to elect any government of a progressive hue.

This is not because Scotland is “different” but because much of it shares exactly the same interests and outlook as large parts of England and Wales.

We need each other, just as we have throughout modern history, in order to make a difference.

Nor does the beacon theory, in which Scotland inspires progressive forces in what is left of the UK, stand up to examination. Scottish nationalism is not a progressive force.

I have repeatedly asked for one example of a redistributive policy which the SNP has adopted during its seven years running Holyrood, and I am still waiting for an answer.

Like every nationalist movement, it tries to cloak itself with the dignity of social justice – but its performance is of the centre-right, keeping the middle classes happy.

That is how it would continue. When the money ran out, the poor would still be waiting.

Monbiot wonders what the difference is between entering a union and leaving one.

The answer is three centuries of shared history which have created a high degree of economic, political and social integration. Our common people have stood together in times of peace and war.

Scotland sells twice as much in goods and services to the rest of the UK as to the rest of the world. We have far higher levels of public spending here, and the devolved powers to determine how they are used.

One illustration of how much Scotland has to lose, which might be expected to appeal to Monbiot, involves renewable energy. At present, consumers in England pay nine-tenths of the subsidy for renewable generation in Scotland.

As part of one market and one state, that is sustainable. If we separated, it would be politically impossible to justify.

Multiply that by a thousand and you begin to appreciate the downsides of breaking up something that has worked reasonably well – and to see the cost in terms of jobs and prosperity.

As a product and beneficiary of the Labour movement, I believe that whatever divides us is as nothing to the needs and interests that should hold us together.

The fool’s gold of separation only has to win once in order to destroy the unity on which so much depends, while Monbiot would merely have a smaller, more right-wing state to denigrate.

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